How to Build Global Community

[image: chernow]

Think of no one as "them" . Don't confuse your comfort with your safety . Talk to strangers . Imagine other cultures through their poetry and novels . Listen to music you don't understand . Dance to it. Act locally. Notice the workings of power and privilege in your culture . Question consumption . Know how your lettuce and coffee are grown: wake up and smell the exploitation . Look for fair trade and union labels . help build economies from the bottom up . Acquire few needs . Learn a second (or third) language . Visit people, places and cultures -- not tourist attractions . Learn people's history . Re-define progress . Know physical and political geography . Play games from other cultures . Watch films with subtitles . Know your heritage . Honor everyone's holidays . Look at the moon and imagine someone else, somewhere else, looking at it too . Read the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights . Understand the global economy in terms of people, land and water . Know where your bank banks . Never believe you have a right to anyone else's resources . Refuse to wear corporate logos: defy corporate domination . Question military/corporate connections . Don't confuse money with wealth, or time with money . Have a pen/email pal . Honor indigenous cultures . Judge governance by how well it meets all people's needs . Be sceptical about what you read . Eat adventurously . Enjoy vegetables, beans and grains in your diet . Choose curiosity over certainty . know where your water comes from and where your wastes go . Pledge allegiance to the earth: question nationalism . Think South, Central and North -- there are many Americans . Assume that many others share your dreams . Know that no one is silent though many are not heard . Work to change this.

--------------------------------------------------

I don't necessarily believe in all that to the dot, but I believe that it's a step in the right direction.